Experimental Concepts for Generating Negative Energy in

the Laboratory
E. W. Davis and H. E. Puthoff
Inst. for Advanced Studies at Austin, 4030 W. Braker Ln., Ste. 300, Austin, TX 78759, USA
512-342-2187, ewdavis@earthtech.org
Abstract. Implementation of faster-than-light (FTL) interstellar travel via traversable wormholes, warp drives, or other
spacetime modification schemes generally requires the engineering of spacetime into very specialized local geometries.
The analysis of these via Einsteins General Theory of Relativity (GTR) field equations plus the resultant equations of state
demonstrate that such geometries require the use of exotic matter in order to induce the requisite FTL spacetime
modification. Exotic matter is generally defined by GTR physics to be matter that possesses (renormalized) negative
energy density, and this is a very misunderstood and misapplied term by the non-GTR community. We clear up this
misconception by defining what negative energy is, where it can be found in nature, and we also review the experimental
concepts that have been proposed to generate negative energy in the laboratory.
Keywords: Warp Drive, Traversable Wormholes, General Relativity, Squeezed Quantum States, Electromagnetic Field.
PACS: 04.20.Cv, 04.20.Gz, 04.62.+v, 42.50.Dv.
INTRODUCTION
It was nearly two decades ago when science fiction media (TV, film and novels) began to adopt traversable
wormholes, and more recently stargates, for interstellar travel schemes that allowed their heroes and heroines to
travel throughout our galaxy. Little did anyone outside of relativity physics know but that in 1985 physicists M.
Morris and K. Thorne at CalTech had in fact discovered the principle of traversable wormholes right out of
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity (GTR, published in 1915). Morris and Thorne (1988) and Morris, Thorne
and Yurtsever (1988) did this as an academic exercise, and in the form of problems for a physics final exam, at the
request of Carl Sagan who had then completed the draft of his novel Contact. Sagan wanted to follow the genre of
what we call science faction, whereby the storys plot would rely on cutting-edge physics concepts to make it
more realistic and technically plausible. This little exercise ended up becoming one of the greatest cottage industries
in general relativity research the study of traversable wormholes and time machines. Wormholes are hyperspace
tunnels through spacetime connecting together either remote regions within our universe or two different universes;
they even connect together different dimensions and different times. Space travelers would enter one side of the
tunnel and exit out the other, passing through the throat along the way. The travelers would move at s c (c = speed
of light) through the wormhole and therefore not violate Special Relativity, but external observers would view the
travelers as having traversed multi-light year distances through space at FTL speed. A stargate was shown to be a
very simple special class of traversable wormhole solutions to the Einstein GTR field equations (Visser, 1995;
Davis, 2004).
This development was later followed by M. Alcubierres discovery in 1994 of the warp drive spacetime metric,
which was another solution to Einsteins GTR field equations. Alcubierre (1994) derived a metric motivated by
cosmological inflation that would allow arbitrarily short travel times between two distant points in space. The
behavior of the warp drive metric provides for the simultaneous expansion of space behind the spacecraft and a
corresponding contraction of space in front of the spacecraft. The warp drive spacecraft would appear to be surfing
on a wave of spacetime geometry. A spacecraft can be made to exhibit an arbitrarily large apparent FTL speed (>>
c) as viewed by external observers, but its moving local rest frame never travels outside of its local comoving light
1362
CP813, Space Technology and Applications International ForumSTAIF 2006, edited by M. S. El-Genk
2006 American Institute of Physics 0-7354-0305-8/06/$23.00
cone and thus does not violate Special Relativity. A cottage industry of warp drive spacetimes research ensued and
papers were published during the next 15 years.
The implementation of FTL interstellar travel via traversable wormholes, warp drives, or other FTL spacetime
modification schemes generally requires the engineering of spacetime into very specialized local geometries. The
analysis of these via Einsteins GTR field equations plus the resultant equations of state demonstrate that such
geometries require the use of exotic matter (or mass-energy) in order to induce the requisite FTL spacetime
modification. Exotic matter is generally defined by GTR physics to be matter that possesses (renormalized)
negative energy density (sometimes negative stress-tension = positive outward pressure, a.k.a. gravitational
repulsion or antigravity), and this is a very misunderstood and misapplied term by the non-GTR community. We
clear up this misconception by defining what negative energy is, where it can be found in nature, and we also review
the experimental concepts that have been proposed to generate negative energy in the laboratory.
THE GENERAL RELATIVISTIC DEFINITION OF EXOTIC OR NEGATIVE ENERGY
What is exotic about the matter (or mass-energy) that must be used to generate FTL spacetimes is that it must have
negative energy density (Ford and Roman, 2003). The energy density is negative in the sense that the
configuration of mass-energy we must deploy to generate and thread a traversable wormhole throat or a warp drive
bubble must have an energy density (
E
= c
2
, = mass density) that is less than or equal to its stress (t), which is
written as:
E
s t (Morris and Thorne, 1988; Visser, 1995). In many cases, the equations of state are also known to
possess an energy density that is algebraically negative. It is on the basis of this condition that we call this material
property exotic. We will return to the meaning of negative energy within another context in a later section. The
condition for ordinary, non-exotic forms of matter that we are all familiar with in nature is that
E
> t. This
condition represents one version of what are variously called the weak (WEC), null (NEC), average (AEC),
dominant (DEC), and strong (SEC) or standard energy conditions (that are mere hypotheses!), which allegedly
forbid negative mass-energy density between material objects to occur in nature. Hawking and Ellis (1973)
formulated these energy conditions in order to establish a series of mathematical hypotheses governing the behavior
of collapsed-matter singularities in their study of cosmology and black hole physics.
However, there are general theorems of differential geometry that guarantee that there must be a violation of one,
some or all of the energy conditions (meaning exotic mass-energy is present) for all FTL spacetimes. With respect
to creating FTL spacetimes, negative energy has the unfortunate reputation of alarming physicists. This is
unfounded since all the energy condition hypotheses have been experimentally tested in the laboratory and
experimentally shown to be false 25 years before their formulation (Visser, 1990 and references cited therein).
For example, the effects of negative energy have been produced in the laboratory via the Casimir Effect and
squeezed states of light. Further investigation into this technical issue showed that violations of the energy
conditions are widespread for all forms of both classical and quantum matter such as planets, stars, black holes,
neutron stars, people, space dust clouds, etc. (Davis, 1999a; Barcelo and Visser, 2002). In addition, Visser (1995)
showed that all (generic) spacetime geometries violate all the energy conditions. So the condition that
E
> t and/or

E
> 0 must be obeyed by all forms of mass-energy in nature is a spurious issue. Violating the energy conditions
commits no offense against nature.
Examples of Exotic or Negative Energy
The exotic (energy condition-violating) mass-energy fields that are known to occur in nature are:
- Radial electric or magnetic fields. These are borderline exotic, if their tension were infinitesimally larger,
for a given energy density (Herrmann, 1989; Hawking and Ellis, 1973).
- Squeezed quantum states of the electromagnetic field and other squeezed quantum fields; see the following
sections for a discussion on squeezed quantum states (Morris and Thorne, 1988; Drummond and Ficek,
2004).
- Gravitationally squeezed vacuum electromagnetic zero-point energy; see the next three sections for the
discussion on squeezed quantum states (Hochberg and Kephart, 1991).
1363
- Casimir Effect energy in flat or curved spaces (DeWitt, 1975; Birrell and Davies, 1984; Saunders and
Brown, 1991; Milonni, 1994; Milton, 2001).
- Other quantum fields/states/effects. In general, the local energy density in quantum field theory can be
negative due to quantum coherence effects (Epstein, Glaser and Jaffe, 1965). Other examples that have
been studied are Dirac field states: the superposition of two single particle electron states and the
superposition of two multi-electron-positron states (Vollick, 1998; Yu and Shu, 2003). In the former
(latter), the energy densities can be negative when two single (multi-) particle states have the same number
of electrons (electrons and positrons) or when one state has one more electron (electron-positron pair) than
the other.
Since the laws of quantum field theory place no strong restrictions on negative energies and fluxes, then it might be
possible to produce gross macroscopic effects such as warp drive, traversable wormholes, violation of the second
law of thermodynamics (Ford, 1978; Davies, 1982), and time machines (Morris, Thorne and Yurtsever, 1988;
Visser, 1995; Everett, 1996). The above examples are representative forms of mass-energy that possess negative
energy density or are borderline exotic. We will explore most of these in what follows.
Squeezed Quantum States
Substantial theoretical and experimental work has shown that in many quantum systems the limits to measurement
precision imposed by the quantum vacuum zero-point fluctuations (ZPF) can be breached by decreasing the noise in
one observable (or measurable quantity) at the expense of increasing the noise in the conjugate observable; at the
same time the variations in the first observable, say the energy, are reduced below the ZPF such that the energy
becomes negative. Squeezing is thus the control of quantum fluctuations and corresponding uncertainties,
whereby one can squeeze the variance of one (physically important) observable quantity provided the variance in the
(physically unimportant) conjugate variable is stretched/increased. The squeezed quantity possesses an unusually
low variance, meaning less variance than would be expected on the basis of the equipartition theorem. One can in
principle exploit quantum squeezing to extract energy from one place in the ordinary vacuum at the expense of
accumulating excess energy elsewhere (Morris and Thorne, 1988).
Squeezed Light
The squeezed state of the electromagnetic field is one of the numerous examples where quantum fields can have
negative energy density. Such a state became a physical reality in the laboratory (Slusher et al., 1985; Slusher and
Yurke, 1986; Robinson, 1985; 1986) as a result of the nonlinear-optics technique of squeezing, i.e., of moving
some of the quantum-fluctuations of laser light out of the cose(t z/c) part of the beam and into the sine(t z/c)
part. This pertains to a particular electric field mode of coherent light from an ideal laser: E = E
0
[Acose(t z/c) +
Bsine(t z/c)], where the electric field amplitude E
0
is constant, e is the angular frequency, z is the beam
propagation direction, t is time, and (A, B) are the field quadrature operators corresponding to the quantized
harmonic oscillator (i.e., the single-mode electromagnetic field) position and momentum, respectively. A and B are
defined to be: A = (ae
i|
+ a

e
i|
)/2 and B = (ae
i|
a

e
i|
)/2i, where | is the oscillator phase, and (a, a

) are the
usual annihilation and creation operators. A and B are the observables we are interested in and they must obey the
commutation relation: [A,B] = i!/2, where ! is Plancks reduced constant. The operators (a,a

) also obey the

commutation relation: [a,a

] = 1. And the oscillator vacuum is defined in the usual way: a,vac) = 0 (i.e., a
annihilates the vacuum state ,vac)). The corresponding uncertainty relation AAAB > , ( [A,B] ) , has one built-in
degree of freedom: one can squeeze the variance of one observable provided the variance in the conjugate
observable is stretched. (Note: the , ( ) , signifies taking the absolute value or magnitude of the expectation value
of the enclosed quantity.) Squeezing becomes important when AA and AB are limited by the minimized uncertainty
product: AAAB = . The observable that gets squeezed will have its fluctuations reduced below the vacuum ZPF.
See Drummond and Ficek (2004) for a comprehensive review of the theoretical and experimental state-of-the-art on
squeezed light physics.
1364
To squeeze, one acts on a (complex) state _ using a squeeze operator, S(_), for a single quantized harmonic
oscillator: S(_) = exp[(_a
2
_
*
a
2
)] (note: _
*
signifies the complex conjugate of _). The state _ = re
io
determines
the size of the squeezing, where r is the amplitude (giving a measure of the mean photon number in _) and o is the
phase of squeezing. The squeezed vacuum is therefore defined as: ,_) = S(_),vac). Calculating the uncertainties
AA and AB with respect to the squeezed vacuum gives AA = exp(r) and AB = exp(r); therefore AB is squeezed
and AA is stretched. Thus S(_) reduces the uncertainty in B and increases that in A while maintaining the
minimized uncertainty product. The act of squeezing transforms the phase space circular noise profile characteristic
of the vacuum into an ellipse, whose semimajor and semiminor axes are given by AA and AB, respectively. This
applies to coherent states in general, and the usual vacuum is also a coherent state with eigenvalue zero. As this
ellipse rotates about the origin with angular frequency e, these unequal quadrature uncertainties manifest
themselves in the oscillator energy by periodic occurrences, which are separated by one quarter cycle, of both
smaller and larger fluctuations compared to the unsqueezed vacuum.
If one squeezes the vacuum, i.e., if one puts vacuum rather than laser light into the input port of a squeezing device,
then one gets at the output an electromagnetic field with weaker fluctuations and thus less energy density than the
vacuum at locations where cos
2
e(t z/c) ~ 1 and sin
2
e(t z/c) << 1; but with greater fluctuations and thus greater
energy density than the vacuum at locations where cos
2
e(t z/c) << 1 and sin
2
e(t z/c) ~ 1 (Caves, 1981; Morris
and Thorne, 1988). Since the vacuum is defined to have vanishing energy density, any region with less energy
density than the vacuum actually has a negative (renormalized) expectation value for the energy density. Therefore,
a squeezed vacuum state consists of a traveling electromagnetic wave that oscillates back and forth between
negative energy density and positive energy density, but has positive time-averaged energy density.
Gravitationally Squeezed Electromagnetic ZPF
A natural source of negative energy comes from the effect that gravitational fields (of astronomical bodies) in space
have upon the surrounding vacuum. For example, the gravitational field of the Earth produces a zone of negative
energy around it by dragging some of the virtual particle pairs (a.k.a. vacuum ZPF) downward. This concept was
initially developed in the 1970s as a byproduct of studies on quantum field theory in curved space (Birrell and
Davies, 1982). However, Hochberg and Kephart (1991) derived an important application of this concept to the
problem of creating and stabilizing traversable wormholes, and their work was corrected and extended by Davis
(1999b). They proved that one can utilize the negative vacuum energy densities, which arise from distortion of the
electromagnetic zero point fluctuations due to the interaction with a prescribed gravitational background, for
providing a violation of the energy conditions.
Hochberg and Kephart (1991) showed that the squeezed quantum states of quantum optics provide a natural form of
matter having negative energy density. The analysis, via quantum optics, shows that gravitation itself provides the
mechanism for generating the squeezed vacuum states needed to support stable traversable wormholes. The
production of negative energy densities via a squeezed vacuum is a necessary and unavoidable consequence of the
interaction or coupling between ordinary matter and gravity, and this defines what is meant by gravitationally
squeezed vacuum states. The magnitude of the gravitational squeezing of the vacuum can be estimated from the
quantum optics squeezing condition for given transverse momentum and (equivalent) energy eigenvalues (j) of two
electromagnetic ZPF field modes, such that this condition is subject to j 0, where j 8tr
S
/, is the ZPF mode
wavelength, and r
S
is the Schwarzschild radius of the astronomical body (or mass) in question (Hochberg and
Kephart, 1991; Davis, 1999b). (Note: r
S
is only a convenient radial distance parameter for each body/mass under
examination and there is no black hole collapse involved in this analysis. The Schwarzschild radius is the critical
radius, according to GTR, at which a spherically symmetric massive body becomes a black hole, i.e. at which light
is unable to escape from the bodys surface. We can actually choose any radial distance from the body/mass in
question to perform this analysis, but using r
S
makes the equations simpler in form.) This squeezing condition
simply states that substantial gravitational squeezing of the vacuum occurs for those ZPF field modes with > 8tr
S
of the mass in question (whose gravitational field is squeezing the vacuum).
The general result of the gravitational squeezing effect is that as the gravitational field strength increases, the
negative energy zone (surrounding the mass) also increases in strength. Table 1 shows when gravitational squeezing
becomes important for example masses. The table shows that in the case of the Earth, Jupiter and the Sun, this
1365
squeeze effect is extremely feeble because only ZPF mode wavelengths above 0.2 m 78 km are affected. For a
solar mass black hole (radius of 2.95 km), the effect is still feeble because only ZPF mode wavelengths above 78 km
are affected. But also note in the table that Planck mass objects will have an enormously strong negative energy
zone surrounding them because all ZPF mode wavelengths above 8.50 10
34
meters will be squeezed, in other
words, all wavelengths of interest for vacuum fluctuations. Protons will have the strongest negative energy zone in
comparison because the squeezing effect includes all ZPF mode wavelengths above 6.50 10
53
meters.
Furthermore, a body smaller than a nuclear diameter (~ 10
16
m) and containing the mass of a mountain (~ 10
11
kg)
has a fairly strong negative energy zone because all ZPF mode wavelengths above 10
15
meters will be squeezed.
TABLE 1. Substantial Gravitational Squeezing Occurs for Electromagnetic ZPF When > 8tr
S
(Davis, 1999b).
Mass of body (kg) Schwarzschild radius of body, r
S
(m) ZPF mode wavelength, (m)
Sun = 2.00 10
30
2.95 10
3
> 78.0 10
3
Jupiter = 1.90 10
27
2.82 > 74
Earth = 5.98 10
24
8.87 10
3
> 0.23
Typical mountain ~ 10
11
~ 10
16
> 10
15
Planck mass = 2.18 10
8
3.23 10
35
> 8.50 10
34
Proton = 1.67 10
27
2.48 10
54
> 6.50 10
53
We are presently unaware of any way to artificially generate gravitational squeezing of the vacuum in the
laboratory. This will be left for future investigation.
A Moving Mirror
Negative energy can be created by a single moving reflecting surface (a moving mirror), see Figure 1. A mirror
moving with increasing acceleration generates a flux of negative energy that emanates from its surface and flows out
into the space ahead of the mirror (Birrell and Davies, 1984; Walker, 1985). However, this effect is known to be
exceedingly small, and it is not the most effective way to generate negative energy for our purposes. We will not
consider this scheme any further.
FIGURE 1. Negative Energy Flux (gold) Emanating from a Moving Mirror.
1366
PROPOSED EXPERIMENTS FOR GENERATING NEGATIVE ENERGY
In what follows we outline five proposed experiments for generating negative energy in the lab. A detailed
technical/engineering analysis of each of these is the subject of future work, and space limits the amount of technical
detail that can be provided in this paper.
Negative Casimir Energy
The Casimir Effect is by far the easiest and most well known way to generate negative energy in the lab. The
energy density
CE
= (t
2
!c/240)d
4
(in J/m
3
) within a Casimir cavity is negative and manifests itself by producing a
force of attraction between the cavity walls (d is the wall separation). This has been measured in the lab to a very
high level of precision for a number of different cavity geometries (see Milton, 2001 and the references cited
therein). But cavity dimensions must be made exceedingly small in order to generate a significant amount of
negative energy for our purposes. In order to use the Casimir Effect to generate a spherically symmetric traversable
wormhole throat of radius r
wh
, we will need to design a cavity of perfectly conducting spherically concentric thin
plates with a plate separation of (Morris, Thorne and Yurtsever, 1988):
( ) ( )
( )
1
2
1 1
2 3 4
3
18
30
4.05 10 ( )
wh
wh
G
d r
c
x r meters
t

=
~
!
, (1)
where G is the Universal Gravitation Constant and r
wh
is in meters. Equation (1) shows that a 1 km radius throat
will require a cavity plate separation of 1.28 10
16
m (smaller than a nuclear diameter), and the energy density
(
EC
) generated by this configuration is 4.83 10
36
J/m
3
. In contrast, a wormhole with a throat radius of 1 AU
(mean Earth-Sun distance) will require a plate separation of 1.57 10
12
m (35% smaller than the electrons
Compton wavelength), and generate 2.16 10
20
J/m
3
of energy density. There is no technology known today that
can engineer a cavity with such miniscule plate separations. In addition, such miniscule plate separations are
unrealistic because the Casimir Effect switches over into the non-retarded field behavior (~ d
3
) of van der Waals
forces when plate separations go below the wavelength (~ 15 nm) where they are no longer perfectly conducting
(Forward, 1983). We will consider this scheme no further.
Radial Electric/Magnetic Fields
It is beyond the scope of this paper to include all the technical configurations by which one can generate radial
electric or magnetic fields. Suffice it to say that ultrahigh-intensity tabletop lasers have been used to generate
extreme electric and magnetic field strengths in the lab. Ultrahigh-intensity lasers use the chirped-pulse
amplification (CPA) technique to boost the total output beam power. All laser systems simply repackage energy as
a coherent package of optical power, but CPA lasers repackage the laser pulse itself during the amplification
process. In typical high-power short-pulse laser systems, it is the peak intensity, not the energy or the fluence,
which causes pulse distortion or laser damage. However, the CPA laser dissects a laser pulse according to its
frequency components, and reorders it into a time-stretched lower-peak-intensity pulse of the same energy (Perry,
1996; 2000; Mourou, Barty and Perry, 1998). This benign pulse can then be amplified safely to high energy, and
then only afterwards reconstituted as a very short pulse of enormous peak power a pulse which could never itself
have passed safely through the laser system (see Figure 2). Made more tractable in this way, the pulse can be
amplified to substantial energies (with orders of magnitude greater peak power) without encountering intensity-
related problems.
The extreme output beam power, fields and physical conditions that have been achieved by ultrahigh-intensity
tabletop lasers are (Mourou, Barty and Perry, 1998):
- Power Intensity ~ 10
15
10
26
Watts/cm
2
(10
30
W/cm
2
using SLAC as a booster)
1367
- Peak Power Pulse s 10
3
femtoseconds
- E-fields ~ 10
14
10
18
V/m [note: the critical quantum-electrodynamical (vacuum breakdown) field strength
is E
c
= 2m
e
2
c
3
/!e ~ 10
18
V/m; m
e
and e are the electron mass and charge]
- B-fields ~ several 10
6
Tesla [note: the critical quantum-electrodynamical (vacuum breakdown) field
strength is B
c
= E
c
/c ~ 10
10
Tesla]
- Ponderomotive Acceleration of Electrons ~ 10
17
10
30
gs (1 g = 9.81 m/sec
2
)
- Light Pressure ~ 10
9
10
15
bars
- Plasma Temperatures > 10
10
K
FIGURE 2. Ultrahigh-Intensity Laser (Perry, 1996).
We find from the above data that ultrahigh-intensity lasers can generate an electric field energy density of ~ 10
16

10
28
J/m
3
and a magnetic field energy density of ~ 10
19
J/m
3
. These energy densities are about the right order of
magnitude to explore generating kilometer to AU sized wormholes. But that would be difficult to engineer on Earth.
However, these energy densities are well above what would be required to explore the generation of micro-
wormholes in the lab.
Negative Energy from Squeezed Light
Negative energy can be generated by an array of ultrahigh intensity (femtosecond) lasers using an ultrafast rotating
mirror system. In this scheme (originally due to Davies, 2001) a laser beam is passed through an optical cavity
resonator made of lithium niobate (LiNbO
3
) crystal that is shaped like a cylinder with rounded silvered ends to
reflect light. The resonator will act to produce a secondary lower frequency light beam in which the pattern of
photons is rearranged into pairs. This is the quantum optical squeezing of light effect that we described previously.
Therefore, the squeezed light beam emerging from the resonator will contain pulses of negative energy interspersed
with pulses of positive energy in accordance with the quantum squeezing model (see Figure 3).
In this example both the negative and positive energy pulses are of ~ 10
15
second duration. We could arrange a set
of rapidly rotating mirrors to separate the positive and negative energy pulses from each other. The light beam is to
strike each mirror surface at a very shallow angle while the rotation ensures that the negative energy pulses are
1368
reflected at a slightly different angle from the positive energy pulses. A small spatial separation of the two different
energy pulses will occur at some distance from the rotating mirror. Another system of mirrors will be needed to
redirect the negative energy pulses to an isolated location and concentrate them there.
The rotating mirror system can actually be implemented via non-mechanical means. A chamber of sodium gas is
FIGURE 3. Negative Energy Pulses Generated from Quantum Optical Squeezing.
nother way to squeeze light would be to manufacture extremely reliable light pulses containing precisely one, two,
or the squeezed (electromagnetic) vacuum state, the energy density is given by (Pfenning, 1998):
placed within the squeezing cavity, and a laser beam is directed through the gas. The beam is reflected back on
itself by a mirror to form a standing wave within the sodium chamber. This wave causes rapid variations in the
optical properties of the sodium thus causing rapid variations in the squeezed light so that we can induce rapid
reflections of pulses by careful design (Slusher and Yurke, 1986).
- + - + - + - + -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Laser &
r
Positive Energy
Negative Energy
Rotating / Redirector
Concentrated
Pulses
Mirror System
LiNbO
3
Resonato
Pulses
Negative Energy
A
three, etc. photons apiece and combine them together to create squeezed states to order. Davies (2001) points out
that superimposing many such states could theoretically produce bursts of intense negative energy (see Figure 4).
Photonic crystal research has already demonstrated the feasibility of using photonic crystal waveguides (mixing
together the classical and quantum properties of optical materials) to engineer light sources that produce beams
containing precisely one, two, three, etc., photons. For example, researchers at Melbourne University used a
microwave oven to fuse a tiny diamond, just 1/1000
th
of a millimeter, onto an optical fiber, which could be used to
create a single photon beam of light (Rabeau et al., 2004a; 2004b). The combining of different beams containing
different (finite integer) number of photons is already state-of-the-art practice via numerous optical beam combining
methods that can readily be extended to our application.
F
( )
(
00
3
2
sinh sinh cosh cos 2 ( / )
E sq vac
T
r r r t z c
L
_ _
e
) e o

= + + (

!
, (2)
here L
3
is the volume of a large box with sides of length L (i.e., we put the quantum field in a box with periodic
boundary conditions), and T
00
is the energy density component of the stress-energy tensor. Equation (2) shows that
w
1369
the energy density falls below zero once every cycle when the condition cosh r > sinh r is met. It turns out that this
is always true for every nonzero value of r, so the energy density becomes negative at some point in the cycle for a
general squeezed vacuum state. On another note, when a quantum state is close to a squeezed vacuum state, there
will almost always be some negative energy densities present, and the fluctuations in (_|T
00
|_) start to become nearly
as large as the expectation value itself.
FIGURE 4. Negative Energy Bursts (gold) Generated from Quantum Optical Squeezing.
- - - - - - - - -
Negative energy should be obse rally occurring negative energy
gions in space is predicted to produce a unique signature corresponding to lensing, chromaticity and intensity
entral region thus
reating an umbra region of zero intensity. At the edges of the umbra the rays accumulate and create a rainbow-like
Observing Negative Energy in the Lab
rvable in lab experiments. The presence of natu
re
effects in micro- and macro-lensing events on galactic and extragalactic/cosmological scales (Cramer et al., 1995;
Torres, Anchordoqui and Romero, 1998; Torres, Romero and Anchordoqui, 1998; Anchordoqui et al., 1999;
Safonova, Torres and Romero, 2001; Eiroa, Romero and Torres, 2001). It has been shown that these effects provide
a specific signature that allows for discrimination between ordinary (positive mass-energy) and negative mass-
energy lenses via the spectral analysis of astronomical lensing events. Theoretical modeling of negative energy
lensing effects has led to intense astronomical searches for naturally occurring traversable wormholes in the universe
(see above references). Computer model simulations and comparison of their results with recent satellite
observations of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) has shown that putative negative energy (i.e., traversable wormhole)
lensing events very closely resembles the main features of some GRBs. Visser (1997) also points out that current
observational data suggests that large amounts of naturally occurring exotic mass-energy must have existed
sometime between the epoch of galaxy formation and the present in order to (properly) quantitatively account for the
age-of-the-oldest-stars-in-the-galactic halo problem and the cosmological evolution parameters.
When background light rays strike a negative energy lensing region, they are swept out of the c
c
caustic with enhanced light intensity (see Figure 5). The lensing of a negative mass-energy region is not analogous
to a diverging lens because in certain circumstances it can produce more light enhancement than does the lensing of
an equivalent positive mass-energy region. Real background sources in lensing events can have non-uniform
brightness distributions on their surfaces and a dependency of their emission with the observing frequency. These
complications can result in chromaticity effects, i.e. in spectral changes induced by differential lensing during the
event. The modeling of such effects is quite lengthy, somewhat model dependent, and with recent application only
to astronomical lensing events. Suffice it to say that future work is necessary to scale down the predicted lensing
parameters and characterize their effects for lab experiments in which the negative energy will not be of
astronomical magnitude. Present ultrahigh-speed optics and optical cavities, lasers, photonic crystal (and switching)
technology, sensitive nano-sensor technology, and other techniques are very likely capable of detecting the very
small magnitude lensing effects expected in lab experiments.
1370
FIGURE 5. Light Deflection by a Negative Mass-Energy Region (Cramer et al., 1995).
The Quantum Inequalities
he Quantum Inequalities (QI) conjecture is an ad hoc extension of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. They
he QI supposedly relates the energy density of a free quantum field and the time during which this energy density
T
were essentially derived by a small group of curved spacetime quantum field theory specialists for the purpose of
making the universe look rational and uninteresting (Pfenning, 1998; see also the excellent review by Ford and
Roman, 2003). A small cottage industry of research papers has sprouted up on this one topic alone. The literature is
too numerous to cite here. This small group is prejudiced against faster-than-light motion, traversable wormhole
and warp drive spacetimes, time machines, negative energy, and other related issues having to do with the violation
of the second law of thermodynamics. This group accepts the reality of the theoretical and proven experimental
existence of negative energy density and fluxes, but they dont accept the consequences of its various manifestations
in spacetime.
T
is observed. When generating negative energy via squeezed quantum states the QI postulates that: a) the longer the
pulse of negative energy lasts, the weaker it must be, b) a pulse of positive energy must follow and the magnitude of
the positive pulse must exceed that of the initial negative pulse, c) the longer the time interval between the two
pulses, the larger the positive pulse must be. This actually sounds quite reasonable on energy conservation grounds
until one finds out that the Casimir Effect (a squeezed vacuum state by virtue of its cavity boundary conditions)
violates all three conditions. The Casimir Effect even violates a steady-state QI analysis. Squeezed light was also
shown to violate the above postulates. Visser (1997) points out that observational data indicates that large amounts
of exotic mass-energy is required to exist in the universe in order to account for the observed cosmological
evolution parameters. The QI have thus not been verified by laboratory experiments or observational data. The
assumptions used to derive the QI and the efficacy of the derivations for various cases has been called into question
by numerous investigators. Krasnikov (2004) constructed an explicit counterexample for generalized FTL
spacetimes showing that the relevant QI does not hold. Therefore, we will ignore the QI conjecture.
1371
CONCLUSION
We reviewed the general relativistic definition of negative energy and identified the forms of negative energy that
are known to occur in nature or have been predicted to occur. We examined each of these and characterized their
physics and the magnitude of negative energy they are capable of producing. Next we reviewed first-order
experimental concepts that we believe will achieve the objective of generating negative energy in the lab. It was
demonstrated that radial electric or magnetic fields generated by ultrahigh-intensity lasers are capable of achieving
energy densities large enough to observe laboratory-scale spacetime effects. It was also shown that the negative
energy densities generated by squeezed quantum state processes are capable of generating negative energy.
However, future work is needed to establish the experimental parameters required to specifically separate out the
negative energy pulses from the positive energy pulses in optical cavity systems at ultrahigh speed. The
astronomical observation of naturally occurring negative energy lensing events has been predicted. The predicted
lensing effects have been characterized and quantified but this also needs to be done for laboratory-scale
experiments, and this will be the subject of future work. Last, the Quantum Inequalities conjecture is predicted to
impose serious constraints on the amount of negative energy that can be generated and utilized. However, this has
been disproved to some extent for a variety of spacetimes and quantum field cases. There is also experimental
evidence that contradicts the main postulates and assumptions of the QI conjecture.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin for supporting this work. This work previously
originated under Air Force Research Laboratory (AFMC) contract F04611-99-C-0025. We also wish to extend our
thanks and appreciation to Frank Mead (AFRL/PRSP, Edwards AFB, CA), members of the Air Staff (Air Force HQ,
Pentagon), and Paul Murad (Department of Defense) for encouraging us to explore this topic.
REFERENCES
Alcubierre, M., The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity, Class. Quant. Grav. 11, L73-L77 (1994).
Anchordoqui, L. A., et al., In Search for Natural Wormholes, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 14, 791-797 (1999).
Barcelo, C., and Visser, M., Twilight for the energy conditions?, Int. J. Mod. Phys. D 11, 1553 (2002).
Birrell, N. D., and Davies, P. C. W., Quantum fields in curved space, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984.
Caves, C. M., Quantum-mechanical noise in an interferometer, Phys. Rev. D 23, 1693-1708 (1981).
Cramer, J. G., et al., Natural wormholes as gravitational lenses, Phys. Rev. D 51, 3117-3120 (1995).
Davies, P. C. W., Can moving mirrors violate the second law of thermodynamics?, Phys. Lett. B 11, 215 (1982).
Davies, P. C. W., How to Build a Time Machine, Penguin Books, New York, 2001.
Davis, E. W., Research Summary Report #2 to Dr. Hal Puthoff, IASA: Brief Summary of Gravitational Vacuum Polarization.
Parts I IV, NASA Research Center Online Library Interstellar Studies (1999a).
Davis, E. W., Research Summary Report #1 to Dr. Hal Puthoff, IASA: Brief Summary of Lorentzian Wormholes from the
Gravitationally Squeezed Vacuum, NASA Research Center Online Library Interstellar Studies (1999b).
Davis, E. W., Teleportation Physics Study, Final Report AFRL-PR-ED-TR-2003-0034, Air Force Research Laboratory, Air
Force Materiel Command, Edwards AFB, CA, 2004, pp. 3-11.
DeWitt, B. S., Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime, Phys. Lett. C 19, 295-357 (1975).
Drummond, P. D., and Ficek, Z. (eds.), Quantum Squeezing, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2004.
Eiroa, E., Romero, G. E., and Torres, D. F., Chromaticity Effects in Microlensing by Wormholes, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 16, 973-
983 (2001).
Epstein, H., Glaser, V., and Jaffe, A., Nonpositivity of the Energy Density in Quantized Field Theories, Nuovo Cimento 36,
1016-1022 (1965).
Everett, A. E., Warp drive and causality, Phys. Rev. D 53, 7365-7368 (1996).
Ford, L. H., Proc. Roy. Soc. London A364, 227 (1978).
Ford, L. H., and Roman, T. A., Negative Energy, Wormholes and Warp Drive, Sci. Am. 13, 84-91 (2003).
Forward, R. L., Alternate Propulsion Energy Sources, Final Report AFRPL TR-83-067, Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory,
Air Force Space Tech. Ctr. Space Div., Air Force Systems Command, Edwards AFB, CA, 1983, pp. A1-A14.
Hawking, S. W., and Ellis, G. F. R., The Large-Scale Structure of Space-Time, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1973, pp. 88-
91, 95-96.
Herrmann, F., Energy Density and Stress: A New Approach to Teaching Electromagnetism, Am. J. Phys. 57, 707-714 (1989).
1372
Hochberg, D., and Kephart, T. W., Lorentzian wormholes from the gravitationally squeezed vacuum, Phys. Lett. B 268, 377-
383 (1991).
Krasnikov, S., Counter example to a quantum inequality, arxiv.org/gr-qc/0409007 (2004).
Milonni, P. W., The Quantum Vacuum: An Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics, Academic Press, New York, 1994.
Milton, K. A., The Casimir Effect: Physical Manifestations of Zero-Point Energy, World Scientific, New Jersey, 2001.
Morris, M. S., and Thorne, K. S., Wormholes in spacetime and their use for interstellar travel: A tool for teaching general
relativity, Am. J. Phys. 56, 395-412 (1988).
Morris, M. S., Thorne, K. S., and Yurtsever, U., Wormholes, time machines, and the weak energy conditions, Phys. Rev. Lett.
61, 1446-1449 (1988).
Mourou, G. A., Barty, C. P. J., and Perry, M. D., Ultrahigh-Intensity Lasers: Physics Of The Extreme On A Tabletop, Physics
Today 51, 22-28 (1998).
Perry, M. D., Crossing the Petawatt Threshold, Science &Technology Review (LLNL-DoE publ.), 4-11 (December 1996).
Perry, M. D., The Amazing Power of the Petawatt, Science &Technology Review (LLNL-DoE publ.), 4-12 (March 2000).
Pfenning, M. J., Quantum Inequality Restrictions on Negative Energy Densities in Curved Spacetimes, Ph.D. Dissertation, Tufts
Univ., Medford, MA, 1998 (arxiv.org/gr-qc/9805037).
Rabeau, J. R., et al., Fabrication of single nickel-nitrogen defects in diamond by chemical vapor deposition, arxiv.org/cond-
mat/0411245 (2004a).
Rabeau, J. R., et al., Diamond chemical vapor deposition on optical fibers for fluorescence waveguiding, arxiv.org/cond-
mat/0411249 (2004b).
Robinson, A. L., Bell Labs Generates Squeezed Light, Science 230, 927-929 (1985).
Robinson, A. L., Now Four Laboratories Have Squeezed Light, Science 233, 280-281 (1986).
Safonova, M., Torres, D. F., and Romero, G. E., Macrolensing Signatures of Large-Scale Violations of the Weak Energy
Condition, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 16, 153-162 (2001).
Saunders, S., and Brown, H. R. (eds.), The Philosophy of Vacuum, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991.
Slusher, R. E., et al., Observation of Squeezed States Generated by Four-Wave Mixing in an Optical Cavity, Phys. Rev. Lett.
55, 2409-2412 (1985).
Slusher, R. E., and Yurke, B., Squeezed Light, Sci. Am. 254, 50-56 (1986).
Torres, D. F., Anchordoqui, L. A., and Romero, G. E., Wormholes, Gamma Ray Bursts and the Amount of Negative Mass in the
Universe, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 13, 1575-1581 (1998).
Torres, D. F., Romero, G. E., and Anchordoqui, L. A., Might some gamma ray bursts be an observable signature of natural
wormholes, Phys. Rev. D 58, 123001:1-8 (1998).
Visser, M., Wormholes, baby universes, and causality, Phys. Rev. D 41, 1116-1124 (1990).
Visser, M., Lorentzian Wormholes: From Einstein to Hawking, AIP Press, New York, 1995.
Visser, M., Energy Conditions in the Epoch of Galaxy Formation, Science 276, 88-90 (1997).
Vollick, D. N., Negative energy density states for the Dirac field in flat spacetime, Phys. Rev. D 57, 3484-3488 (1998).
Walker, W. R., Negative energy fluxes and moving mirrors in curved space, Class. Quant. Grav. 2, L37-L40 (1985).
Yu, H., and Shu, W., Quantum states with negative energy density in the Dirac field and quantum inequalities, Phys. Lett. B
570, 123-128 (2003).
1373